RECENT events reveal the extent to which the Office of the Ombudsman—a supposedly independent state agency tasked to investigate government corruption—has been itself corrupted by an administration that thinks nothing of wielding it as a weapon against its political enemies.
Just last week, we learned that Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales has been pressuring the Commission on Audit to release an incomplete audit report on the construction of Makati City Hall Building 2 in a bid to derail the candidacy of opposition presidential candidate Vice President Jejomar Binay, who was mayor of Makati during the building’s construction.
At the same time, the Ombudsman also ordered the dismissal of the mayor of Valenzuela City, a key campaign official for independent presidential candidate Grace Poe. The mayor was ordered dismissed, the Ombudsman said, because he was responsible for issuing a business permit to a factory that burned down, killing 74 people in May last year.
Is it a mere coincidence that these cases are surfacing at a key juncture, two months before Election Day?
If we are to apply author Emma Bull’s suggestion that coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys, then there is nothing coincidental about the Ombudsman’s actions.
There has been nothing subtle, after all, in the way Morales has gone after the President’s enemies with hammer and tongs.
Last month, Morales reaffirmed the indictment against Binay for graft just a few days before the campaign period began, guaranteeing headlines that would hurt the opposition candidate.
Shortly after her appointment in 2012, she also played a key role in the impeachment of Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona, a thorn on the side of her benefactor, President Aquino.
In 2014, she sidelined three opposition senators by filing plunder charges against them and sending them to jail while awaiting trial.
In contrast, Morales has been glacially slow in taking action against administration allies who benefited from the Priority Development Assistance Fund and Disbursement Acceleration Program, both of which had been declared illegal by the Supreme Court.
There is absolutely nothing wrong about filing cases against corrupt government officials and sending them to jail. Indeed, that is the job of the Ombudsman. But when this job is done selectively and targets only the political opposition and a few token administration allies to ward off criticism, this reduces the Ombudsman to a political assassin doing the dirty work for the party in power.
Last year, piqued by media criticism, Morales dared her critics to impeach her if they believed she had done wrong. “I welcome it,” she shouted. “I will give [up] my position on a silver platter.”
Perhaps she needs to be reminded that this was exactly what happened to her predecessor—who was pressured by a vindictive President into resigning by the threat of impeachment.
Precedent is a double-edged sword, and Morales may yet find herself on the wrong end of it if any of the candidates she has tried to take down wins the election in May.